


The Beating Heart

by Ferith12



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Slightly noncanon-compliant for the Lay of Leithian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Summary: Beren, from his father's death to the Girdle of Melian.Part of the Darker Oneshots Halloween challenge.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	The Beating Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't turn out to be quite as gory or violent as I originally intended, but it has a ghost and spiders, so that should be sufficiently creepy for halloween. See the end notes for all the other writers participating in this event with me :)

The darkness creeps upon the land,

fills the air like dust and wind. 

It descends on heavy lids in sleep, 

slithers in through cracks that gape 

untended when the mind’s at rest, 

a mortal’s heart undefended.

The things that creep in that nonspace, 

unseen, unfelt in light of day,

are bitter, bitterly cold, as death

has taken their beating hearts away.

Pale and black, their lifeblood gone,

such creatures wander on this world’s face, 

their wailing soft,

unending,

to seep beneath the skin of those still living

and not yet lost. 

They seek the hidden ways to light,

to what is beyond the endless night,

but the dark is woven thick and deep, 

and those it slays it holds to keep.

But the dead might not be wholly gone,

their minds not wholly lost to madness and despair, 

the fear that fills that nothingness. 

Some might wander, for a little while, 

with still themselves, their own desires, 

their own regrets and guilt, 

and will to set them right.

So Beren slept,

as darkness wove a web of spiders, inky black,

and felt the chill of restless death.

The ghost of Gorlim sneaked within his dream,

the unhappy wanderer, the betrayer, the betrayed, 

lost alone in empty night,

came to that place between death and life 

and spoke his warning.

Beren woke, his words held burning in his breast, 

and hurried to his father’s camp,

his houseless home. 

And there he found the murdered trees, 

their broken bows were white with wooden flesh. 

The birds were singing sorrowfully, afraid,

and carion beasts towards the carnage strayed.

Beren came too late.

(And there were also birds who came to that awful feast. 

They mocked him as he sat beside the corpse and wept.)

The man meat was strewn across the glen

where beasts had torn at it until 

you could not tell where one man’s entrails ended, another might begin.

He found his father’s hand was severed, 

laying near another kill,

with his father’s ring upon the finger still.

He dug his father’s grave throughout that lonely night, 

and carried stones to pile on his head, 

until his nails were broken, his fingers bled. 

(He had not strength or time for all the rest,

his fallen kin, beloved and now gone.) 

At break of dawn he set the final stone.

He did not weep, his tears were frozen to his bones.

So Beren rose as cold as fear,

and ran, though all that he held dear

were dead. 

Alone he stood and swore within his heart 

(still beating, it beat a dirgeful song)

to stand as best he could against the dark.

So he stood, and ran and fell. 

(The hunt that followed roared on silent paws.)

Death to love, and love to death and ends are only endings if you die. 

So continued the endless fight.

His foes were many and friends were none, 

unless it be the moon or sun

that hung

bright enough to blind the orcs 

(they ran screaming to their hidden holes

as blood ran dripping on their tongues, 

and from their clothes,

it flowed from fingers and from wounds, as wounded still

they followed in their master’s will).

But Beren made allies beneath the friendly sun,

with things on wing and things that run,

all things that fear the whispering dark, 

that do not speak the tongues of men or elves, 

but speak of simpler things amongst themselves.

Live, survive, and fight. 

He ate fruit he found and hid from sight. 

Above all else he fought. 

And though it oft seemed all for naught,

his arm was mighty in his vengeful wrath, 

and so he carved himself a path 

through enemies afraid and livid in their fear. 

For at least a little while.

But no man could fight the endless dark, 

not alone, with no joy to make his hearth, 

and they made great prizes for the hunt of him,

this small mortal thorn beneath the skin,

the fury of Angband towards him turned, 

and Beren knew how fierce that fury burned.

He fought and fled and fought again,

until he was pressed toward wilder lands, 

lands now tamed by wilder hands,

the darkling woods, the twisted trees 

that held mortal terror in their eaves, 

and all the fears of the immortal folk,

that walked in dreams to slay when they awoke.

He had heard tales of it from men and beasts

who told him of the strangeness of that dark, 

the land of the necromancer (who awoke poor Gorlim’s wife

and tricked him with her undead plight),

but here where two powers met, 

Melian’s song and Sauron’s intertwined,

who would dare enter the world they bent?

And so with death behind and death ahead, 

Beren chose to go where no foe could find him dead.

Once in days before the day, 

before the trees, before the count of time,

there was dark.

And in the dark, a spider.

Her formless body, vast 

and filled, a sucking vacuum of what was not yet, 

her poisoned fangs sharp as needles cut the void.

Her legs stretched out in nothingness,

a creeping aching, emptiness. 

She hungered.

Where she went none there are who know.

For where is there for something such as her to go?

But she had children (by what evil means we dare not ask) 

and their hunger too was vast. 

They were drawn to dark as lead is drawn to earth,

and so they swarmed in that dark haunted way, 

and waited hungry still when Beren came.

What is sleep and what is waking

when both are equally a nightmare haunt? 

Defense and fear, fear defense, 

hunger cold and wet and dense 

as undergrowth and and trees above

with boughs that twist and turn and sigh, 

and all around a turning wind 

a torn in two a vision spins,

run back, run on what way is up? 

There is nothing, no way to stop.

The trees bore no fruit, no nuts, no seeds, 

all that grew were poisoned weeds.

What is despair? When does it begin? 

Can one despair if he does not end?

(Beren’s heart was beating still.)

The spider silk slid on his skin, 

silky soft, it slipped within 

his clothes to stick to flesh,

to hold him tight within it’s mesh. 

Beren did not make a sound. 

A scream if it were heard aloud,

he long ago had learned would send

only for foes (he had no friends). 

There is no sound in Melian’s dark, 

unless it is the sounds that howl in your heart.

The spider held him in it’s arms 

and laughed at him, 

this skin-bones man, 

less than a snack, no meat to spare,

but oh, there was something better there. 

Determination, next-door to hope, 

she held it in her claws, enmeshed in rope 

she weaved of emptiness,

despair and hungry, tortured lightlessness. 

Slowly, slowly, she ate his heart.

But Beren’s will was strong as steel. 

No hope had he, and yet still

he fought and fought, did not give in, 

no hope had he, but less despair. 

And so the spider held him there.

His knife was sharp, though it was small,

her eye glowed sickly, greenish, large. 

His arm in one great heave he loosened from her hold,

he stabbed her in that bulbous orb.

She had not learned not to scream.

He killed her by surprise that day,

and others killed in that same way.

And lost in nightmare, wandered still. 

His heart beat in tandem with his will.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm participating in this challenge with:  
> Alastair  
> ArgentNoelle  
> AsgardianHobbit98  
> Babyvfan  
> Bewdofchaos  
> Brenna76  
> Caldera Valhallis  
> Count Morningstar  
> CrimsonRaine87  
> DancesWithSeatbelts  
> DemonOfTheFridge  
> DemonShippingQueen  
> Desna  
> Drawingdownthemoon  
> Elleurs  
> FreyjaBee  
> HisagiKirigakure  
> HoshisamaValmor  
> Iceburg-sanCPX  
> Jadeile  
> Kakashi97  
> Kamil the Awesome  
> Karkatsbabe  
> Kittyface27  
> KurohimeHaruko  
> Max333  
> Nazaki-Sama  
> NekoPantera  
> Nissa Fox  
> PhantomGypsy13  
> Phoenixreal  
> Potashiamu  
> RayeMoon  
> Rhearenee  
> Sailor Silver Ladybug  
> SensiblyTainted  
> Serena.Jones.585  
> SereneCalamity  
> SesshomaruFreak  
> Seth’s Kiss  
> Shnuggletea  
> Sigan  
> Silirt  
> Silverstar  
> Spunky0ne  
> Starfire93  
> Tartarun  
> The Token  
> TheBadIdeaBears  
> TsukikoUchu  
> WhatIDesireEternally  
> Wrath of Vajra  
> Xache  
> Yatsu Narurasuke  
> Yemi Hikari 
> 
> Check out their stuff!


End file.
